kravietz 🦇 on Nostr: #Russia bloggers describe the reality of #Tuapse, a seaside town on the coast of ...

#Russia bloggers describe the reality of #Tuapse, a seaside town on the coast of Black Sea, which also happens to host a large oil depot that is now burning for the fourth day in row.[^1]

The aftermath of the bombing of Tuapse is simply horrific. This is no exaggeration, nor is it ‘dramatic language’ – it is simply a statement of fact. It is not really that emotional, when you think about it. In essence, what is happening there now is like Hiroshima, only without the radiation. Due to the massive fire at the oil terminals, ‘oil rain’ has been falling on the city and surrounding areas since yesterday, killing flora and fauna. The land is poisoned.

In another post he writes[^2]

The town of Tuapse no longer exists. It has been destroyed. That is a fact. The soil there is poisoned, the water is poisoned, the air is poisoned. Right now, black rain is falling there, just like in Hiroshima – water mixed with oil soot. It is killing the vegetation, the insects and the birds. As for the people, the consequences are equally predictable.

Russia could have easily stopped this mutual exchange of long-range aerial attacks. Of course, the easiest way was not to start the invasion on Ukraine in 2022. But even since then Ukraine several times proposed, including US mediation, a limited ceasefire specifically on long-range attacks against energy infrastructure. Russia always rejected this - initially because Ukraine “had no cards”, meaning it had no technical means to respond, but for at least at year it has. So Ukraine responds, and Russians are clearly experiencing it. In military doctrine it’s called “moving the military activities to the attacker’s territory” to impose the cost of invasion on them, rather than the attacked.

But you would be mistaken if you expected that - after five years of merciless pounding of Ukraine towns, hospitals and power stations with rockets and bombs accompanied with explicit statements that their purpose is to make the towns “unlivable” - the Russian bloggers would be calling to stop this madness. Quite the opposite, the same “Shakespeare”[^1] ends his apocalyptic description with the following appeal:

Who will be held accountable, and how, for the fact that since 2022 they’ve been stringing Ukraine along, telling us we’re ‘’good boys’, only to end up turning Tuapse into a second Hiroshima?

What he refers to is a popular Russian TV narrative that “we haven’t started yet” and that “Russia is moving so slow because it spares civilians”.

What he calls for is to increase the intensity of attacks on Ukrainian population, but there’s just one problem - there’s no more terror they can impose, Russians are already at their peak performance, and possibly passed the peak last winter, which they very much hoped would “break Ukraine’s back” - but it didn’t.